Consumers of media content, such as movies, television programs, and short videos, are increasingly streaming media content over the Internet to client devices, such as laptops, smart TVs, and streaming media players. Typically, when online streaming is used, media content is constantly received in blocks and rendered on the client devices as the blocks are received. Online streaming may thus generate a higher bandwidth usage than other online activities.
When performed inefficiently, online streaming may waste network resources. For instance, network infrastructure may be under-utilized in situations where blocks of streamed content are requested one-by-one. In such situations, a client device may transmit a first request, receive a response, and transmit a second request only after the response to the first request is received. Streaming content in this manner may result in a network throughput that is below the network's bandwidth.